Better than HDR: local exposure editing

The concept behind this tutorial is simple. To use this technique, you must manually adjust the various “zones” of an image to your liking. For example, if the ground is too dark, you brighten the ground. If the sky is too bright, you darken the areas that need editing. This is much preferable to something like High Dynamic Range plugins or software that use “Tone Mapping”, which don’t allow you to adjust the individual areas.

The key to proper exposure is to expose as much as you can before “blowing” the highlights. This means to make the image as bright as possible until your image has areas that are pure white. Most cameras will display this with a “highlights” feature, where areas on the screen will flash or blink. Take the photo one third of a stop lower than the exposure which gives you “blown highlights”, then follow this tutorial.

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